Leaping into a painful situation

Date: 03/12/1998

The European Parliament already has some pretty strange cross-party discussion groups, but there are fears that a new one might attract the wrong sort of MEP.

These 'intergroups' discuss everything from rugby league and ceramics to shipbuilding and bungee-jumping.

There is even a kangaroo intergroup, although this body was set up to deal with free movement in the EU rather than marsupials.

But the eyebrow-raising newcomer to the ever-growing list of internal pressure groups is the one on 'pain'.

Posters promoting the pain intergroup have gone up in the Parliament and, while all MEPs are welcome, special vice-like handshakes and slaps on the back await sadists and masochists.